By Vicky Milne, Registered Massage Therapist

Massage Therapy can be extremely multifaceted and beneficial for a variety of people.

Whether you’re an athlete training for your next big race or event, a family that goes on extra-long hikes every weekend, or someone who is working at a desk every day, massage can help you. But how often should you get a massage?

Extensive research on the subject has shown that massage can help with perceived muscle tightness, temporarily improve flexibility, reduce that sore and stiff feeling you get after a hard workout, commonly referred to as DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness), and also improve quality of sleep.

Working regularly with a healthcare practitioner such as a Registered Massage Therapist can help you become more aware of not only your body, but also areas and aspects of your day-to-day life that could be contributing to your discomfort. 

When you’re training for something such as a marathon, triathlon, or a bike race, it’s easy to just accept that you’re sore, tired, run down or not feeling your best but in truth those feelings can be somewhat avoidable with the correct guidance and recovery tools.

Everyday athletes often think that they’re immune to things such as REDS (Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport) because they aren’t elite athletes and those sorts of things don’t happen to them.

Being in the care of a healthcare practitioner can help monitor your recovery and raise the alarm if they think a referral to a Physiotherapist, Dietician, or Medical Doctor is warranted.

Things such as irregular menstrual cycles, extreme tiredness, soreness that does not go away even during recovery weeks, and bone stress injuries are all things that should be taken seriously.

These symptoms can be caused by a variety of factors such as energy deficiency due to under fuelling, low iron and low bone mineral density in all genders.

Your Registered Massage Therapist can help monitor your training and refer out to other medical specialists as needed. 

So, to answer the original question: “How often should I get a massage and is it just for relaxation?” 

While there is absolutely nothing wrong with seeking out massage for regular relaxation purposes, massage can have real lasting effects for long-term training and quality of life. That is why we recommend seeing your Massage Therapist monthly or during your down/recovery weeks of your training cycle to help ward off any injuries and refer to other healthcare practitioners if they feel your training could benefit from other expertise. So don’t put off booking that massage because you think it’s too self-indulgent!